Automatic brickmaking-machine



D. J. STRICKLAND.

AUTOMATIC BRICKMAKING MACHINE.

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APPLICATION FILED JUNE 9.1915. 1,344,278.

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D. J. STRICKLAND.

AUTOMATIC BRICKMAKING MACHINE.

APPLICATION FILED suns 9,1915.

Patented June 22,1920.

3 SHEETS-SHE.E1 3.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

DAVID J. STRICKLAND, OF CLEVELAND, OHIO, ASSIGNOR TO THE STRICKLAND COMPANY, OF CLEVELAND, OHIO, A CORPORATION OF OHIO.

AUTOMATIC BRICKMAKING-MACHINE.

Specificatien of Letters Patent.

Patented J line 22, 1920.

Application filed June 9, 1915. Serial No. 32,993.

To all whom it may concern.

Be it known that I, DAVID J. STRICK- LAND, a citizen of the United States, residing at Cleveland, in the county of Cuyahoga and fitate of Ohio, have invented a certain new and useful Improvement in Automatic Brickmaking-Machines, of which the following is a full, clear, and exact description, reference being had to the accompanying drawings.

This invention relates generally to brick making machines and more particularly to an automatic brick making machine. One object of the invention is to provide a machine which will dispense with hand labor to a very great extent, it being only necessary to manually arrange the pallet for the purpose of receivin" the brick which is automatically dislodged from the mold. Another object of the invention is to provide an automatic machine which will mold or compress a brick of uniform density and automatically trim or shave off the surplus material leaving a perfectly smooth and uniform brick.

Another object of the invention isto provide a machine embodying automatic means for dislodging the brick from the mold, and conveying the emptied mold to a sanding box and subsequently delivering the.

same in proper position for receiving another charge of clay.

Certain other objects will appear and the invention consists in the novel features of construction and in the manner of combining or arranging said parts, all of which will be more fully described hereinafter and set forth in the appended claims. In the drawings forming a part of this specification, Figure 1 is a top plan view of an auto matic brick machine embodying my invention; Fig. 2 is a vertical sectional view on the line 2-2 of Fig. 1 and looking in the direction of the arrow; Fig. 3 isa righthand end elevation; Fig. 4 isa left-hand end elevation and Fig. 5 is a detail View,

13 said blades being so constructed and arranged as to thoroughly work the clay and feed the same toward the end of the casing which is in the nature of a compression box indicated at 14 in Fig. 2, and in this compression box 14 is arranged the wiping blade or arm 15 the purpose of which is to force the clay toward the die 16 which is located at the upper forward corner of the compression box or chamber; and working in conjunction with this die '16 is the plunger 17 which forces the clay through the die into the mold hereinafter described.

The plunger 17 is mounted on the end of a rod 18 and works in a suitable guide arranged in the compression box or chamber, the end of the rod 18, being connected to a cross head 19 sliding in a guide 20 and receiving motion from the pitman 21 which is connected at its opposite end to a crank meshes with a pinion 25, arranged upon the main drive shaft 26, upon which is also mounted a drive pulley 26 driven by a belt 26". It will also be noted that the gear wheel 24 meshes with a similar gear 2'7 upon,

the end of the pug mill shaft 12, by means of which motion is transmitted to the pug mill shaft from the -main drive shaft 26.

28 indicates the mold, and it will be noted that there area series of such molds ar rangedend'to end and that they are adapted to be moved horizontally in a line transverse to the line of movement of the plunger, and these molds rest primarily upon a table 28* and are forced beneath a platen 29 by means of a reciprocating feeder 30 sliding in guides 31 and rei'iiprocat-ed by means of a rod32 pivotally connectedat its rear end to the upper end of a lever 33 said lever being pivoted at 33 to a bracket attached to'the pug mill casing, and the opposite end of this lever 33 is connected to a rod 34 having a strap or loop at its end connected to an eccentric 35 mounted upon the shaft 23, so that as said shaft rotates the rod 34 is operated, the lever 33 rocked, and the reciprocating feeder worked back and forth to feed themold beneath the platen 29; the manner of feeding the mold face downwardly to the table 28 being fully described hereinafter.

After the clay has been forced into the mold which rests in alinement with the die 16 and platen 29 it is fed forwardly by the reciprocating feeder, pushing the next or empty mold into position and it will be understood that the plunger and feeding mechanism are so timed that the mold will be at rest, in alinement with the die, as the plunger moves toward said die. 7

After the mold has been filled with clay it is fed forwardly and travels in a raceway upon rollers 36 and the lower face of the mold is caused to travel over a rotary trimmer or scraper 3? which is rotated apidly and trims or scrapes the surplus material from the mold, thereby providing a perfectly smooth brick, and one of uniform thickness and size.

The raceway is preferably made of such length that several molds are arranged end to end as most clearly shown, the end mold resting upon a platen 38, which is placed upon a rest 39 composed of rollers carried by arms which are pivoted to the main frame as shown and this vibrating rest is vibrated or moved up and down by means of a rod 40, which has a loop 4O at its lower end and through which the shaft 23 passes, this loop having a pin 4O which works in a cam groove 40 cut in the face of the disk 40 mounted upon the shaft 23, the loop and the cam groove being so shaped that when the mold is forced upon the vibrating rest the rod will be reciprocated dropping the arms 39 which are pivoted at 39 and the molded brick will "be dropped from the mold, and with the platen, will pass out over the delivery raceway 41.

Just before the rest drops to feed the brick upon its platen to the delivery raceway, each end of the mold is struck by the knocker arms, said arms eachconunrising the forward portions 42, and the rear portions 43, these portions being connected at the elbow 44, and the rear members are continued forwardly as shown at 43, and a spring 43 interposed between the said members as most clearly shown, said springs permitting the forward members 42 to spring outwardly so as to strike the end of the mold a sharp lateral blow.

At their forward ends the members 42 of the knocker arms are bent inwardly toward each other as shown, providing fingers 45, which are adapted to engage the spring cams 46 carried by the arms 47 on the main frame, and these parts are so constructed and arranged that as the knocker arms swing downwardly, the fingers 45 engage the cams 46 and are spread or separated while passing said cams but after passing the cams, the fin-' gers 45 are forced inwardly by the springs 43 and strike the ends of the mold and serve to dislodge the molded brick therefrom, as before stated, and these operations take place just prior to the dropping of the rest.

The arms 42 also have a purpose or function other than knocking the brick from the mold, namely, that of elevating the empty mold and starting the same back to the sanding box preparatory to receiving another charge of clay, and in order to do this it will be understood that the arms swing upwardly through the arc of the circle, and the means for accomplishing this movement will be hereinafter described.

After the brick has been discharged, the arms 42 are moved upwardlycarrying the mold along the curved guide 48 and when the top of the same has been reached the forward ends of the arms will be rearwardly inclined and the mold will slide or roll there from upon the roller raceway 49 which inclines slightly rearwardly and by means of which the molds are carried. face downwardly and discharged between the curved guides 50 and 51 which constitute part of the sanding box.

At the lower end of these curved guides 50 and 51 is the endless belt 52 traveling around rollers 53 arranged at an angle to each other as shown and in connection with said endless belt is a drum or wheel 54 which serves to keep the molds in contact with the endless belt. The molds being end to end, but separate one from the other, pass down between the guides 50 and 51 and along the belt beneath the wheel. or drum 54 and at the top of the belt 52 they pass beneath a curved shield 55 by means of which they are directed upon a counter-balanced trip 56 upon which the mold drops and is turned so as to be delivered face downward upon the table 28, and in conjunction with this counterbalanced trip is a connterbalanced cnt-ofi' 57, through which the mold drops upon the trip 56, and this cutoff 5'? is normally held open by the trip 56, but when said trip turns upon its pivot to discharge the mold upon the table 28*, the cut-off 57 is released and swings by gravity across the end of the shield 55 and prevents a second mold being deposited upon thetrip 56 until said trip and cut-off have returned to their normal positions. i

I will now describe the means for operating the rocker arms, feed belt and rotary trimmer or shaver, and for economy and convenience of construction I preferably pivot the arms 43 upon the ends of a shaft 54 upon which the wheel or drum 54 is mounted, said shaft passing entirely through the sanding box which it will be understood is carried in a portion of the main frame of i the machine.

A pulley 53 is mounted upon the outer end of the shaft carrying the upper roller 53 of the endless belt 52, and around this pulley 53* travels a belt 53" which receives motion from the pulley 53 mounted upon the end of the pug mill shaft, and this pulley also has a cam groove 58 cut therein and in which travels the pin or roller 59 carried by the lever 59 pivoted to the side of the frame and connected to a link or pitman 60 which in turn is connected to the arms 43 and cause said arms to be raised and lowered at the proper times and in the proper manner.

A pulley 3' is mounted upon the end of the shaft of the rotary trimmer or scraper 37, and is driven by a belt 37 which receives its motion from the pulley 37 mounted upon the end of the main drive shaft 26, and it will be noted that the pulley 37 is considerably smaller than the pulley 37, so that the rotary trimmer or shaver is driven at a (onsiderable speed, thereby trimming or shaving off the surplus material in a perfectly smooth and even manner.

From the foregoing description taken in connection with the accompanying drawings it will be seen that I provide an automatic brick making machine, the only manual operation being the placing of the pallet upon the vibrating rest to receive the brick from;

the mold.

In operation, the clay of the proper consistency is placed in the pug mill and the machine started. The pug mill shaft rotating in the casing will slice and temper the clay and at the same time feed it toward the compression box at the end at which point the blade 15 presses the same toward the die and in advance of the plunger.

By this time one of the molds has been fed into alinement with the die and the plunger is then caused to move toward the die forcing the clay therethrough into the mold. Upon the return movement of the plunger the mold is moved away from the die and another empty mold is forced into alinement, which mold with the brick therein is forced out into the raceway and comes over the rotary trimmer or scraper which is constantly rotating, and the surplus clay is thus trimmed or scraped from the mold. The trimmed and scraped mold is then fed forwardly until it reaches the vibrating rest at which time it is caused to move upon the pallet which has previously been placed upon said rest. At this point the knocker arms are brought down striking the mold at T each end, thereby dislodging the molded brick from the mold, and the rest dropping at this time discharges the pallet with the brick thereon upon the delivery raceway. The knocker arms are then elevated, carrying between them the empty mold which is discharged upon the upper raceway 49 and this mold continues rearwardly and passes,

between the curved guides 50 and 51 which constitute a part of the sanding box. These molds traveling in series are then earned up by means of the endless belt and discharged upon the trip which automatically turns them and deposits them in proper position upon the table 28 just in position to be operated upon by the reciprocating feeder, and inasmuch as the molds are always ar ranged in series end to end, the pushing of one mold into position serves to feed the others along to their proper positions. In this manner the automatic operations of the machine are continued indefinitely.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim is:

1. In a device of the kind described, the combination with a pug mill, die, plunger and platen, of a table upon one side of said die and a raceway upon the opposite side, a rest at the end of the raceway, a mold adapted to rest upon the table, and means for feeding the same between the die and platen and along the raceway to the rest, and combined knocking and lifting arms adapted to engage the mold upon the rest as set forth.

2. In a device of the kind described, the combination with a pug mill, die, plunger and platen, of a table and mold thereon together with means for feeding said mold between the die and platen, a raceway and a rest at the end thereof, of combined knocking and lifting arms adapted to engage a mold upon said rest, and a second raceway adapted to receive the mold when said arms are so lifted.

3. In a machine of the kind described, the combination with a rest, of combined knocking and lifting arms adapted to engage a mold upon said rest, a raceway adapted to receive the mold so lifted, and a sanding box at the end of said raceway adapted to receive the empty molds as set forth.

4. In an apparatus of the kind described, the combination of a raceway, a rest at the end of the raceway, means for moving molds therealong and upon said rest, and combined knocking and lifting arms adapted to engage the mold upon the rests as set forth.

5. In an apparatus of the type described. the combination of a raceway, means for feeding empty molds to one end of said raceway in an inverted position, means for moving said inverted molds along said raceway, a'charging chamber beneath said raceway, means in said charging chamber for filling said inverted molds, means for dislodging the brick from said inverted molds at the end of said raceway and for elevating the molds in an inverted position to a conveying mechanism located above said raceway, said conveying mechanism carrying the empty molds back to the feeding mechanism.

6. Inan apparatus of thetype described, the combination of a raceway, means for inverting and feeding empty molds to one end anism carrying the empty molds back to the feeding mechanism, and a movable rest at the end of the raceway adapted to receive the brick dislodged from said molds.

In testimony whereof I hereunto affix my signature in the presence of two witnesses.

DAVID J. STRICKLAND.

Witnesses CHAS. E. BROOK, HUGH B. MGGILL. 

